Yachting: Crew buoyant as confidence grows

By Lisa McDonald

6:28PM GMT 25 Jan 2002

WE'RE halfway through the Volvo Ocean Race in terms of miles but I tend not to think of it as a round the world race. It's a regatta and we've completed only three of the nine races. The back half of the world will have double the number of stages we've sailed so far and we leave Auckland with vastly higher confidence in each other and the gear than we did in Southampton last September.

We've been playing catch-up so far, but I feel pretty confident that we're in our best state yet. Having got halfway round, we've already sailed in most of the predominant weather systems, have a much better feel for our boat and we have more confidence in our own sailing and crew work.

This will be a big plus for the fourth stage. Our first time in the Southern Ocean on the second leg was a learning experience. This time we know we can press harder.

Remember, we only came together as a crew a month before the start and three weeks of that was spent in Southampton's Ocean Village. We did our 2,000-mile qualifier but that was with a crew mixed from our team-mates on Grant Dalton's boys' boat, Amer Sports One. We never had crew trials, crew training and time getting to know the boat with our own crew.

Every time we do a big manoeuvre solidly and quickly now, there's a huge sense of achievement. For this leg, Amer Sports Too has a new navigator, Miranda Merron. She's our third. Miranda brings trans-ocean racing experience and that will add a lot to our dialogue and decision-making.

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Auckland has been our first decent rest. For once, we have not been working flat-out on the boat the entire time. The crew had a week off and I managed a few days on a remote stretch of coast with Neal (Lisa's husband is Assa Abloy's skipper) but your head in always in the race. You eat, drink and sleep it.

Both Neal and I were dismasted (on Silk Cut and EF Education) on this same leg in the last race. So we have checked and double-checked everything on Amer Sports Too. And though the last leg saw our forestay break and the rudder damaged, all of that happened before New Year's Eve. After that, we had the most fantastic sailing to Auckland. So I feel sure already that 2002 is going to be good to us.